Investigators with the Riverside City Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife are trying to figure out what the hell caused dozens of geese and ducks that frequent a lake to die en masse over the last few weeks, KABC reports.
“I’ve been feeding them for years, and my husband found one of his favorite ducks face down dead about four or five days ago, and he came to me and screamed that they’re all dead,” Fairmont Park regular Jen Taylor said, adding “two weeks ago it was beautiful. We loved coming here. I can’t even sleep at night because all I think about is all my little friends that have died already.”
And yeah that is definitely very sad but it’s kind of weird that it’s strictly grief keeping her up at night and not like, whatever the fuck it is that killed those animals and whether it could be hazardous to humans living nearby too. That maybe her drinking water might not be safe or that a previously undiscovered volcanic fissure is opening up at the bottom and it caused a thick cloud of carbon dioxide to bubble up to the surface like the 1984 Lake Nyos disaster in Cameroon.
Officials are testing the air and the water to try to see what it was that killed the ducks, but all the theories they have right now is extreme heat or an algae bloom. A nearby fire hydrant has been opened up to continually feed clean water into the lake in hopes of freshening it.